Miami Lawyer Joins Commission

DIGEST

December 1, 1998

Ira Leesfield, a Miami personal injury lawyer, has been appointed by President Clinton to serve on the Presidential Advisory Commission on Holocaust Assets in the United States. Leesfield, one of 11 private citizens named to the commission, is the only one from Florida.

The U.S. commission is one of 13 established around the world to look for assets stolen from victims of the Nazis. The commission will submit a report to the president by Dec. 31, 1999.

Woman arrested in voter-fraud case

A Kendall woman who worked for the political campaign of former Miami City Commissioner Humberto Hernandez was arrested on Monday on charges of voter fraud, police said.

Police say that Vanessa Ortega, 29, used a fake Miami address to vote in the November 1997 city elections. According to a court affidavit, Ortega changed her voting address so she could cast an absentee ballot for Hernandez on Nov. 4. She also voted fraudulently in the Nov. 13 mayoral election.

Hernandez is the former politician who was convicted of covering up vote fraud. He is serving a year in jail.

Ortega was implicated in the widening ballot-fraud investigation along with her boyfriend, Jorge A. Jaen, 29, of Kendall.

Parents to hold education forum

FORT LAUDERDALE -- Citizens Concerned About Our Children, a group that sued the Broward school system claiming it discriminated against black schoolchildren, is scheduled to hold a forum on education tonight.

The CCC will discuss the process for the school system's selection of an interim and a new superintendent.

The group also will brief the community on the status of its 1995 lawsuit against the district. The School Board has asked its attorney to negotiate a settlement in the case.